Bat(Man) out of Hell
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: Trial and Error tag: A night of interrupted sleep because, well, maybe they're not totally good.


**Bat(Man) out of Hell**  
K Hanna Korossy

Of course Dean had staked out a good spot to hide the Impala before he'd even staked out a room. It was a shame Sam was too tired and sore to even tease him about it as they dragged their stuff out of the trunk and their weary bodies into the bunker.

"Y'good?" Dean asked at they reached the hallway to the bedrooms and prepared to part company, his first words in at least an hour.

Sam heard all the shades of the question: did he have any injuries he could use help with? Was he still feeling okay, some twenty hours after completing the first Trial? Did he feel comfortable with being in separate rooms?

But, honestly, he wasn't sure what he was feeling. There was something…off inside him since that initial breathtaking spike of pain upon finishing the Trial. Nothing Dean could treat, but something his brother would definitely worry about if he knew, so, yeah, not saying anything about that one. And the separate rooms… Sam was thirty…one?—he had to think for a minute with all the deaths and hell-time and lost time, but he was pretty sure he was just thirty—and sleeping on his own shouldn't even be an issue.

He sighed. "I'm good. How 'bout you?" He nodded toward Dean's ribs, the bandaged hellhound claw marks hidden under his shirt.

"Fine," Dean said even as his hand hovered over his injured side.

Right. They were a pair of totally fine, independent, healthy adults. No problem. "Okay. Yeah. Uh, sleep tight."

"G'night, man," Dean muttered back, and shuffled toward his room.

They were in the same hallway, at least, almost opposite each other. With doors open, it was a lot like sharing a room. Sam snorted to himself: yeah, he was thirty, whatever. As many times as they'd been attacked in their sleep, recovered from attacks with sleep, suffered in mind and body during sleep, and fell asleep counting the other's breaths, he was giving himself a pass on this one.

He wanted to fall into bed but, well, hellhound-blood bath. He dropped the ruined t-shirt into the trash and stood under the hot water until he felt raw and clean. Even his arm had stopped tingling, the creepy glow gone. No big deal, right? They'd done multi-part spells before. Hopefully, Kevin would figure out the other two Trials quickly before the process took a toll on Sam. And even if it did… He was getting through this. He and Dean. A future awaited for the first time since Stanford, darn it, and he was claiming it.

He fell into bed like a chopped cedar.

There was a hellhound in his dreams—maybe more than one?—and Crowley having a tête-à-tête with Abaddon, and Dean screaming somewhere in the bunker, but no matter how many hallways Sam ran down, he couldn't find him. He snapped awake finally through sheer will…

And realized Dean was still screaming.

Sam was on his feet before he consciously made the decision, his every instinct honed to his brother's needs like a mother to her child's. He was at Dean's door by the time he realized, A, there were no other sounds, just Dean's distress, and, B, Dean had faced a hellhound the night before. And some part of Sam's foggy brain had known Dean had taken that way too well. Sometimes even Sam bought the act and forgot that his superhero brother was all too human.

Unsurprisingly, Dean was thrashing in bed, but there was no visible threat. An invisible one wasn't impossible, but between the way the bunker was warded and what he knew of his brother, Sam didn't even entertain that thought. The menace here was real, but only inside Dean's head.

"Hey," Sam barked, striding forward. "Hey! Dean!" He grabbed one kicking leg and shook it.

He didn't always—or even usually—wake Dean from nightmares. Besides the whole danger factor in startling awake someone who had a knife under his pillow, there was Dean's pride to consider. He usually settled or woke quickly on his own, but having Sam wake him, knowing his little brother witnessed him like that and felt badly for him, could be a worse blow than the nightmare itself.

But hellhounds were up there with Hell dreams in horror, and Sam had already caught a glimpse of red on Dean's bandaged side.

Dean, surprisingly, bolted awake unarmed. Sam grimaced: that probably wasn't a good sign, if Dean had had no hope of fighting back in his dream. His brother just stared at him blankly for several seconds, chest heaving, one hand creeping up to press against his injury.

Sam gave him a lopsided smile. "Dude, no more taquitos before bed."

"What?" Dean still sounded breathless, baffled. He blinked sweat out of his eyes, glancing around the room, then back at Sam, orienting himself. "Sam? Right. Uh." He blinked again. "Hey, did we just…?"

"Come back from a hunt for a hellhound? Yeah. Looks like you popped some stitches, too."

"What?"

He didn't let himself wince, didn't do anything more than approach Dean slowly, hands raised a little so there was no hint of threat, and eased Dean's palm away from his ribs. "Stitches. Hellhound? C'mon, before you get your blood on your memory mattress."

"Memory foam," Dean corrected dumbly, but he was coming back to himself. He shrugged out of Sam's grip, eyes tightening a little as he must've pulled at his side, and climbed out of bed to follow Sam.

"You know we've been here, what, three weeks, and we've used the medical clinic three times already?" Sam said over his shoulder as he led the way into the white-tiled room. He darted his eyes from Dean to the table, and turned away to get out the supplies as his brother slowly sat.

"Better than those matchbox motel bathrooms," Dean muttered as he peeled the gauze off.

Sam chuffed a laugh. "Remember that one you got that weird rash from on your—"

"Yes," Dean interrupted with a glare, "thank you. And we're not talking about that again. Like, ever."

Sam was still grinning as he leaned in to inspect the damage. Two busted stitches, one tearing the skin. Sam reached for the scissors he'd dunked in alcohol.

"You think Ellie's gonna be okay?" Dean asked quietly.

He was so exhausted, it took Sam a few seconds to switch gears and recognize what Dean was talking about. "For now, yeah. Guess it depends how fast we can lock up Hell."

Dean grunted. Sam wasn't sure if it was in answer, or because of the thread he was sliding out of his brother's skin. "You know what she made her deal for?"

Sam frowned as he pressed gauze against the fresh trickle of blood. "I figured it was something about working on the ranch."

"Naw, she'd be okay without that." A beat, Dean's voice growing more weighted. "Her mom was dying."

Sam glanced up into his drawn face, the understanding there. "Oh." He focused again on the bleeding claw mark, jaw tight. Crossroad deals for loved ones would never stop being a painful subject for them.

"Yeah, _oh_." Dean cursed quietly under his breath as Sam dabbed on the antiseptic. "You almost done?"

"No." They'd washed out the gashes with holy water back at the ranch, and there was no sign of infection, but Sam didn't even want to think about what was on hellhound claws. He turned away to thread a needle, casting around for a topic that would get Dean to sit still a few more minutes. "So, when you said you wanted me to get out of hunting, have a future…"

"Man, just kill me now," Dean groaned.

Sam tied off the first stitch as he nodded a quick capitulation. "Okay, okay, just…does that mean…Amelia and me…?"

"What, am I okay with you two going back to playing hide the salami? Mortgaging a condo together? Having 1.2 dogs?" At Sam's dirty look, Dean dropped the leering humor. "Dude, you wanna go play house with your girl, go, seriously. I don't—hey, watch it!—I don't like it, but I get it. That wasn't what had me bent."

No, and honestly, Sam knew why Dean had been mad: because Sam hadn't looked for him, had just taken for granted that Dean was in Heaven—however painful that acceptance was—and left him to fight for his life in Hell's backyard while Sam went to "play house." It was something he didn't like to think about, either.

But he'd also caught Dean's use of past tense about being mad.

He pressed the last piece of tape gently into place and straightened. Dean looked almost startled that he was done, like he was braced for Sam to keep at him, physically and verbally. His eyes skated past Sam's as he gingerly felt down his bandaged side.

"Uh. Thanks."

"You're welcome." Suddenly awkward now that he had nothing to do, Sam also cast his eyes around the small room, finally lighting on the scattered supplies. He turned to put them away.

"No, seriously." Dean sounded like that mix of uncomfortable and sincere he got when he was trying to say something he didn't really want to put into words. "Thank you."

Sam looked at him in surprise, not sure exactly what they were talking about: the first aid, the nightmare, the Trial, returning to the hunt with Dean? But it was the same answer for all of them. "Sure. You wanna hug now?"

Dean's expression was a perfect mix of horror, affection, and relief. "Dude, you are never touching me again."

"Dude, that's what she said." Sam grinned at him, particularly pleased with that comeback.

Dean shoved him, hard, looking like he was stuck between outrage and amusement. Maybe even pride. It was fantastic.

They shuffled back toward their bedrooms in silence. Sam hung back half a step to watch, but Dean seemed to be moving okay, if guarding his side. "Drink something before you go to sleep," Sam reminded him. As he saw Dean perk up, he quickly added, "Water, not whiskey."

"Killjoy," Dean muttered, but paused just before his door. "Y'good?" Just like before, even if it was his injury they'd been treating.

"I'm good. You?"

Dean grinned at him. "I'm awesome."

Sam shook his head fondly and lumbered back to bed. With any luck, that little talk would let Dean sleep through the rest of the night.

He was the one who woke sometime later, hacking up a lung. It was a wet cough, like when he'd had pneumonia, but his chest felt more hollow than heavy.

 _"Y'all right?"_ came drowsily from across the hall.

Was there ever a more useless question they asked each other? "Fine, air's just dry," Sam called back.

He thought he heard a mutter about a humidifier, then all was still again.

He reached out blindly for a tissue and wiped the phlegm off his hand. Dean had left the tissue box on his nightstand, along with every other personal touch in Sam's room. No doubt by week's end there'd be a humidifier, too.

Really, he hadn't lied to his brother. He was relatively all right. More than that, Sam was determined he would be okay, that he'd survive this, for both of them. In the little treatment room, he'd been pretty sure he'd seen a gleam of hope in Dean's eyes that Sam himself felt inside, that they had a possible future now.

He tossed the tissue blindly toward the Star Wars trashcan by the desk, and snuggled down into the bedding Dean had picked out for him.

After all, if Dean could believe for the both of them that they finally had a home, Sam could keep the flame of hope alive that they'd be sticking around to enjoy it.

 **The End**


End file.
